Bus of Widows of War Embarks on Journey to the Austrian Alps
A group of widows of war and their children from Ukraine recently embarked on a bus journey to the Austrian Alps. They were invited to attend a charity summer camp organized by Nathan Schmidt, a former American marine who understands the pain of losing loved ones in war. Schmidt, who found solace in mountain climbing after serving in Iraq, offered the grieving families a glimmer of hope - a chance to rise above their sorrow in just six days in the Alps.
After enduring a grueling 45-hour journey, the bus arrived at an Austrian hotel at 3 in the morning. The widows, who had brought along their fair share of skepticism, already felt unsure about the trip. Their husbands had lost their lives defending Ukraine, adding to the estimated 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict. Natalia Zaremba, one of the widows, shared her thoughts:
"I think they still don't believe what happened. Just like me, they're still waiting for daddy to come home from work," Zaremba said, translated from Ukrainian.
For daddy to fly home to 8-year-old Illia and 5-year-old Andrii who imagined mastering the air like their dad. Mykhailo Zaremba was a navy pilot shot down, May 2022--in the unprovoked invasion of his home.
Natalia Zaremba (translated): He loved Ukraine, so, he gave his life for Ukraine.
Scott Pelley: What is your hope for this trip?
Natalia Zaremba (translated): I want to find strength for myself to be able to bring my children up, to bring our children up. I want to find the strength to not let my husband down, and to give our children a good future.
Thirteen widows and 20 children had come to Austria from Mykolaiv, a city bombed by the Russians for 260 days. The bereaved families traveled 13-hundred miles on faith to meet a stranger still struggling to heal from his own war.
Nathan Schmidt, Naval Academy graduate, lieutenant colonel U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, led shouts of glory to Ukraine at the third summer camp hosted by his small charity, the Mountain Seed Foundation.
Nathan Schmidt: It comes from the Bible. It was, you know, "With faith the size of a mustard seed, one can move mountains." We're not-- we're not a religious organization, but that faith-- that faith in something bigger, that faith in self. And if you can reinforce that faith -- we and you can move mountains.
Mountaineering Camp Empowers Ukrainian Families
By Anonymous
Scott Pelley: What do you hope these families have when they return to Ukraine?
Nathan Schmidt: We teach, we teach about the significance of the rope in mountaineering. The rope signifies community, it signifies team. You're never alone on the rope. It also signifies courage. Because when you're on the rope that means you're climbing a mountain. And courage doesn't mean that you're not afraid. It actually means that you are afraid and you're gonna overcome that fear.
There would be plenty of fear to overcome because, ultimately, this was his goal. To lead children on the last leg of a climb to the peak of Mount Kitzsteinhorn—at more than 10,000 feet. The first steps to the summit began with training for the kids, ages 5 to 17.
For their moms, there were daily group therapy sessions. And every day of the camp would raise the challenge for both.
Nathan Schmidt: We're gonna trust ourselves, the main thing, we're gonna trust our equipment, and we're going to trust the team that we're with.
The team of professional guides and other volunteers included Dan Cnossen. Cnossen was Schmidt's Naval Academy classmate. As a Navy SEAL in 2009 he lost his legs in Afghanistan. He's a three-time paralympian, but he'd never climbed since his injury.
The initial days of training appeared to be risky.
However, there was always an experienced guide present—
One professional guide for every four children who gradually eased the tension for kids, including 14-year-old Myroslav Kupchenkov.
Guide: Now just lean back, lean back, completely trust.
Myroslav Kupchenkov: No, I can't.
Guide: You can.
Myroslav Kupchenkov: I can't.
Guide: You can.
Myroslav Kupchenkov: I CAN'T!
Guide: Of course you can.
Myroslav, along with his adult sister and their mother, Natalia, lost Oleksandr Kupchenkov, a 53-year-old career soldier.
Natalia Zaremba (translated): He was the man I wanted to spend my entire life with. He excelled in everything, a wonderful husband, a wonderful father. People adored him.
Kupchenkov was struck by a Russian missile in March 2022 while delivering ammunition to his pinned-down soldiers.
Myroslav Kupchenkov (translated): Every day he showed me how to be a good person. And he was always brave. He would never retreat – only move forward.
And Myroslav discovered that in rappelling, going back is moving forward, and fear is just one step before triumph.
Guide: That's it. There you go, fantastic!
As the children learned the ropes, the mothers appeared to be reaching their breaking point.
Amit Oren: It will be hard for you to hear this…
They were led by clinical psychologist Amit Oren, with translation by Iryna Prykhodko, the charity's Ukrainian co-founder. Amit Oren is an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine.
Amit Oren: The way I approach this group of people is not in looking at their trauma; it's in looking at their strengths.
Amit Oren: Capacity for love, honesty. These are the strengths that they're finding. All I do is take a flashlight, illuminate inside them, and let them see and remember who they are.
But Svitlana Melnyichuk, on the left, didn't see the light. She didn't believe in breakthroughs. She brought her daughter Myroslava while her adult daughter stayed home. Svitlana lost her husband, Yuriy, a civilian building inspector who volunteered the day after Putin invaded. Svitlana mixed homemade explosives for the troops as her husband sent text messages from the front. Svitlana told us:
Svitlana Melnyichuk (translated): Pictures started coming in "Good morning darling" with a photo of a flower taken right from the trench. It was spring already, right from the trench.
The photos thrilled her because Yuriy had always worked too much, at the expense of the family, she thought. But after the invasion family was all he cared about. His revelation lifted their lives. Then he was dead. and her rage is almost like blindness.
Svitlana Melnyichuk (translated): I became very distant and angry, and I kept all the sorrow inside. I didn't share it.
Nathan Schmidt was keeping his sorrow inside when in 2019, a friend invited him on a climbing trip. Schmidt wasn't a mountaineer. He's afraid of heights. to him, the idea sounded so difficult and frightening it might just have the force to break his grief.
Nathan Schmidt: Yeah. You know, I spent the Naval Academy preparing myself for war, and nothing can prepare yourself for war.
In 2004, Schmidt was a 24-year-old first lieutenant who dreamed of leading marines. He landed in Fallujah, on the eve of the bloodiest battle of the entire Iraq war.
Nathan Schmidt: Two weeks after arriving in--at Camp Fallujah I lost my teacher who was a mentor of mine at the Naval Academy.
Scott Pelley: Killed?
Nathan Schmidt's Journey of Healing
Yeah. The rocket struck the office. I was the second one in the room. And-- and it was the first time I had ever seen anyone die in such a way. And-- and it was my teacher. And that established a crack in me that had to be healed in another way that took years and years to heal. The problem was that, that was the first of many cracks. I lost one of our Marines that was in my unit a month later. I then had my friend lose his leg. I took over his team. A few days after that, I lost my analyst in the gun turret of our vehicle. By the end of November, the unit that I was with, which is a great unit, 3/1-- was combat ineffective. We had lost over 20% of our unit either injured or killed.
And that was his first tour. He fought in Iraq for three years.
Scott Pelley: Who were you after that third tour?
Nathan Schmidt: I thought in my mind that I was the strongest, but in reality, I was – I was the weakest. I was strong physically. I could do as many pull-ups as you asked me to do. I could run. But, yeah, I was broken. And you know, and those cracks, they take a lifetime to heal.
Scott Pelley: You spend this week doing what you can to heal these families. And I wonder how much of that is healing you.
Nathan Schmidt: It's huge. This program has healed me in ways that I can't even describe. And then I feel sometimes like it's selfish. You're right, you're right. It works. And I'm not sure why.
Maybe it works because the children and mothers who arrived on the bus will not be the same people who return to Ukraine. No one's quite the same after scaling a wall like this.
Nathan Schmidt's week-long summer camp for bereaved Ukrainian children and their mothers began with training in the Austrian Alps. Then, serious work began—the kind of challenge that might rise to a revelation.
The Hohe Tauren National Park embraces some of the highest peaks in the Austrian Alps and a feat of engineering. The Mooserboden Dam would be the first big challenge for the 13 widows and their 20 children. A zipline flew them to the concrete face.
…where they found a steel cable to clip their harnesses to. Footholds were set across the span about two-and-a-half football fields wide. The children and moms literally could not fall. and yet, the Mooserboden Dam remained 32 stories of doubt.
Natalia Zaremba did not like the measure of it. The Russians had killed her husband, the father of her two boys. Was this risk foolish?
Scott Pelley: Why do you put them on this dam?
Nathan Schmidt: We put them on this dam because we want them to confront discomfort. We want them to confront their fears.
Nathan Schmidt co-founded the Mountain Seed Foundation charity. We met in the 700-square mile park where the dam, finished after World War II, is a tourist attraction for rock climbers.
Scott Pelley: What makes this safe, in your view?
First off, we have professional mountain guides. The second thing is, all the equipment that we have, they trained throughout the week on it. They know how to use the equipment. And then particularly the little children, they are also short roped into a guide. So, there's multiple layers of security for them.
And so, with all that security…. the challenge was not so much under their feet, as under their skin.
Myroslav Kupchenkov who told us his late father "never went back—always forward"—was following his father's lead.
You know, in life sometimes the thing that gets you through a difficult point is knowing that you've already done something more difficult.
Scott Pelley: What difference do you see in them when they reach the top?
The sheer look of joy on their faces…
It's hard to even comprehend. And we know that will be a strong point for them when they go back to Ukraine. They will know that they've conquered this wall, and they will-- they've conquered their own fears.
Fears conquered by Natalia Zaremba who, at the end of the climb, was walking on air.
She told us she came to Austria to find strength to raise her boys alone.
It was something incredible. As soon as I stepped on the ground, the children ran to me, hugged me. There were no flowers there, so my older son gave me a branch from a bush.
Scott Pelley: You can see the smile on their face, but deep down, the pain is still there. Natalia Zaremba, who lost her husband, expresses how difficult it is to find joy in life knowing that her husband is no longer with them. Even when she smiles, the pain in her heart remains strong.
However, for Natalia and others like her, there is still hope. By attending meetings and listening to words of inspiration, such as those from Navy SEAL Dan Cnossen, they find the strength to keep going. Dan Cnossen, who lost his legs in Afghanistan, reminds them that they have the power to decide how their lives will be shaped by their circumstances.
But for some, like Svitlana Melnyichuk, words cannot fully capture the depth of their pain. Svitlana, who lost her husband to the Russians, compares life to a book that she stopped reading when her husband died.
But opening a new chapter is what clinical psychologist had in mind—and so she took the widows to a storybook castle. where she hoped to scale the walls of Svitlana Melnyichuk.
And she started to talk with her about castle walls, that they were going to see a castle, where there are always very deep, tough, impenetrable walls, and that she thought that her face looked like that, that it was hard to see what's inside, like this castle. And she brought them to a wall-- a side wall of the castle, where there are teeny, tiny windows. And she said to them, "Right now, I think you're here at the bottom. And as you go up, you're able, then, to see three windows" she said, "Unless you open that window, you can't peer out and see the beauty around you. You're trapped." And ultimately what happened is several of the women stood there on the grass and opened up to each other. She was one of them.
It was choking you, It was choking you.
Da. Da.
The next day, after the group session, she had been thinking.
A mother approached me and shared, "Our conversation was incredibly painful. But I made a decision. The anger was suffocating me, so I chose to let it go and find my breath again."
What an achievement! You have worked so hard. I am genuinely thrilled for you.
She still has a long journey ahead, but she has realized that she has the power to choose. In this world, she can control how open or closed she wants to be within her own fortress.
Unexpectedly, none of the mothers anticipated what occurred in February 2022.
Was it the invasion?
They lost their homes, and in many cases, their futures became uncertain. It's like being in a climbing situation where you have no idea where to place your hands or feet. You don't know if you'll be able to hold on or if you'll fall. This program aims to guide them, provide footholds and handholds, and help them mend the cracks. Ultimately, it's about leading their children back up the mountain.
On day five, one mountain remained. Nathan Schmidt took the first steps from a high tram station on an ascent to the peak of Mount Kitzsteinhorn. It was a steep and icy 570 feet to the ultimate test of the camp.
Like the dam earlier, there was a fixed cable to hook onto. But, like the dam, glancing down looked fatal. And looking up-- a cold, thin glare exposed hours of struggle. We followed Schmidt's lead and remembered what he told us about the rope we were on and its three lessons, community, courage…
Nathan Schmidt: And the last thing is responsibility. And this is probably the most difficult one. And that is, when you're on the rope you're responsible for those that are on the rope with you. When they're weak you pull them up. When they are showing signs of fatigue, you encourage them.
Nathan Schmidt: Look at me, Ivan. "Breathe in, 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4…
Nathan Schmidt: We hope that when they go home, that they build their own communities, they add people to their rope that they encourage them to face their fears and have courage.
Courage lifted them 10,508 feet—a summit reached by everyone.
Nathan Schmidt: Let's go Dan!
Including, Nathan Schmidt's Naval Academy classmate, Dan Cnossen on his prosthetics.
Dan Cnossen: It was challenging, it was challenging but I'm thrilled to have reached the top and it was amazing to accomplish it with everyone, seeing the children climbing gave me a lot of inspiration to keep pushing.
Natalia Zaremba's children pushed to the top. She had come to Austria to find strength within herself. However, from the peak, she could see where that kind of strength truly comes from.
Natalia Zaremba (translated): We now have something that brings us closer together, some new achievements, which we experienced together and that taught us to be braver and stay united, because only together can we overcome this. Our strength, SHE SAID, will come from being together.
Also among the climbers at the summit was Myroslav Kupchenkov, who told us that now he feels capable of anything.
Scott Pelley: What is your hope for them?
Nathan Schmidt: My hope for them is that they can remember the achievement that they've had, and I also hope they remember the stillness and peace of these mountains. You can't hear the sounds of war here. Just close your eyes, and you feel like you could fly.
Even Svitlana Melnyichuk took flight—rising to the summit and, at last, to the high, open windows of her castle.
Svitlana Melnyichuk (translated): I was screaming, to be honest I was simply screaming. Having breathed in full lungs of air, I was screaming with my head up toward I don't know, God, nature, I don't know. I was just getting rid of all the negative.
Scott Pelley: Has this helped you in some small way to heal?
Svitlana Melnyichuk (translated): Oh. Well, at least I managed to open the bag of my sorrows.
To open their sorrows to the sky. Five days before, they clipped to a rope a string of broken souls. Now they would return to the war, but this time, resurrected in strength and love and invincible hope.
Produced by Oriana Zill de Granados and Michael Rey. Associate producer, Jaime Woods. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Robert Zimet.
